|
2009
Gift Guide
Recordings
Alternative
and Pop
At
the dawn of the postpunk movement, circa 1989 in Washington,
D.C., one label mattered: Dischord. And one band would emerge
from that scene to something resembling mainstream success.
No, not the DIY-til-death Fugazi, nor the too-weird-for-school
Shudder to Think. Rather, Jawbox, the quartet who rode two
well-received Dischord releases to a major-label deal and
MTV Buzz Bin status in 1994. The band split in 1997, but this
fall Dischord and the Jawbox-owned DeSoto label have teamed
up to reissue the band’s Atlantic debut For Your Own
Special Sweetheart, complete with three bonus tracks
originally released on the Savory +3 EP. Engineer Bob
Weston, best known these days as the tape-loop guy for Mission
of Burma, remastered the whole thing and it sounds ferocious.
The vinyl is recommended here, because it looks awesome and
comes with a code to download the whole thing for free.
Live records are all the rage this season, for some reason.
Tom Waits has issued Glitter and Doom Live,
his first live record in 20 years. Recorded on his brief 2008
tour, Glitter finds the godfather of gravel winding
through an eclectic song selection (his best-known songs are
nowhere to be found here); the deluxe edition tacks on a 35-minute
disc of banter—Tom Waits’ first official comedy album, basically.
R.E.M. also have a deluxe live package out, and it’s a monster,
no pun intended. The 2-CD, 39-song Live at the Olympia
is an exceptional collection, a bounty for fans, and a nice
way to make up for the lackluster 2007 R.E.M. Live
disc. The lively set (Michael Stipe calls it, at one point,
an “experiment in terror”) was recorded during the band’s
“live rehearsals” in Dublin as they prepped for their Accelerate
album, and it’s a beauty of a set list. From “Cuyahoga” to
“Kohoutek,” from “Disturbance at the Heron House” to “Sitting
Still,” this is an outstanding selection of songs played by
a perennially solid live act.
List-making types frequently name Nirvana’s 1992 headlining
performance at the U.K.’s Reading Festival as the Best Gig
Ever, so it’s no small deal that Nirvana Live at Reading
is finally hitting the market. It’s a career-defining performance
and setlist—“Aneurysm,” “Been a Son” and “Sliver” are all
here, as is almost all of Nevermind—available on CD
and DVD, a deluxe edition that combines the two, and on double
vinyl. The same band’s debut LP, Bleach, got
the 20th-anniversary-reissue treatment this fall; a 1990 live
set is tacked on, and it’s available, in homage to the original
release, on 180-gram white vinyl. The true Nirvana completist
on your list might also be interested in the Foo Fighters’
Greatest Hits. Finally, a best-of collection
from a band who actually deserve one. (Though any Foo best
that omits “I’ll Stick Around” is visibly flawed.)
Big Star co-founder Chris Bell didn’t live long enough to
merit a greatest hits, but what little music he did record
in his lifetime was for the most part sublime. The posthumous
I Am the Cosmos collected his works on one disc
in 1992, and this year it got a swanky reissue with a bonus
disc of rare tracks attached. It’s a sweet companion piece
to the Big Star box set, which should already be on your list.
1960s British Invasion act the Zombies have issued the DVD-only
Odyssey & Oracle (Revisited), a recording
of the 2008 London concert celebrating the 40th anniversary
of their landmark LP. (A 2-CD set was issued in the U.K. last
year, but this is the concert’s first availability here.)
The first half, featuring the current touring band, is a hit-or-miss
look at the band’s garage-rock and R&B early stuff and
post-Zombies hits (including Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up,”
a concert staple, but also three gorgeously arranged, string-quintet-added
tunes from Colin Blunstone’s solo album One Year).
Blunstone’s voice is quite remarkable throughout, and the
second half of the set—reuniting the surviving original members
of the band for the first-ever performance of Odessey—is
pure gold.
Speaking of gold, New York’s coolest record label celebrates
a legacy of modern soul on Daptone Gold. The
23-track collection culls a variety of material, from album
tracks by Sugarman & Co. and the Budos Band, to a previously
unreleased cover of Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Giving Up”
by Daptone flagship act Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. This
is a dance party waiting to happen.
And . . . oh, why not: I just watched Katy Perry’s MTV
Unplugged (it’s out as a CD/DVD set) and I lived.
Putting aside the odd vocal mannerisms, there are moments:
The acoustic version of “Waking Up in Vegas” really brings
out the Desmond Child contribution (meaning it sounds like
old Bon Jovi), Perry’s song “Thinking of You” would make a
great country crossover, and the performance of Fountains
of Wayne’s “Hackensack” is single-worthy. If you know someone
who would want this, go for it, irony be damned.
—John
Brodeur
Beyond
Alternative
Texas
Sheiks is a band assembled by Geoff Muldaur, and their
self-titled album (Tradition & Moderne) was created as
a final musical gathering among the friends of Stephen Bruton,
who was dying from cancer. This farewell is a celebration
of their shared love of music and of each other. There are
traditional numbers and selections from the songbooks of the
Big Bill Broonzy, Skip James, Robert Johnson and others; the
vocals are shared by Muldaur and Johnny Nicholas and a couple
guest turns by Jim Kweskin. While this was a one-off project,
it has the depth and resonance of a real band.
Izzy Young started Greenwich Village’s Folkore Center in in
1957 as a store also offering live performances. Ten years
later, Tim Buckley, barely known and with his debut album
out, stopped in and a concert was arranged for the following
month. Three dozen people showed up, hearing songs that would
become keystones of his early work, as well as a handful that
were never otherwise recorded or released. Recorded by Young
on a simple reel-to-reel, the tapes sat on a shelf for decades,
now finally appearing as Tim Buckley: Live at the Folklore
Center, NYC—March 6, 1967 (Tompkins Square). It reminds
me of when I saw John Malkovich and Gary Sinise perform True
West at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, before they’d stepped
into film and television. You knew you were in the presence
of something remarkable that wouldn’t be unknown for long.
A pair of high school pals (one now deceased) have had their
music covered by jazz ensembles. Fast ‘n Bulbous were formed
solely to cover Captain Beefheart material. Led by Philip
Johnston of the Microscopic Septet and Gary Lucas (Gods &
Monsters, Du Tels and, most connectedly, the Magic Band).
Four horns and a guitar-bass-drums trio, Waxed Oop
(Cuneiform) is a dozen Beefheart songs, rearranged as chugging
and funky instrumental workouts (plus a bonus track with Robyn
Hitchcock singing “China Pig”). The Ed Palermo Big Band return
to Frank Zappa’s compositions for the third time with Eddy
Loves Frank (Cuneiform). The 17-piece band are capable
of the layered and undulating textures that were a hallmark
of Zappa’s jazz and orchestral writing. From the regal “Regyptian
Strut” to the sassy riffing of “Echidna’s Arf (Of You),” Frank
would be pleased.
Yo La Tengo sailed into the autumn with a justly lauded album,
but last spring they quietly released a noisy set of covers
under the name Condo Fucks, cleverly titling the album Fuckbook
(Matador). It captures the thrill of learning and playing
songs in a basement. The vocals are buried in the mix, the
exception being Georgia’s stand-alone moments when she sings
“Gonna dance with you” in the breaks of the Troggs’ “With
a Girl Like You.” Sly humor abounds, from the recording and
production credits and liner notes to the trio’s “adopted”
names: Georgia Condo, Kid Condo, and James McNew. Good joke!
The Yolks are from France and have been building a loyal following
in Paris, where they reside, and elsewhere on the continent.
I know this from my daughter, who spent a year over there,
heard them once, then again and again. Their debut EP (released
on their own label and through iTunes) draws four songs from
their formidable live repertoire and gives them all full studio
heft and flourish. A love of ’70s funk-pop is evident throughout,
but far from being a retro exercise, they build on the best
aspects of that music and have created something utterly contemporary
and rife with their own character. Hear “Stop Working” and
believe. On “Temptation,” vocalist Arnaud de Miomandre brings
to mind Aussie Paul Kelly. He may have never heard him, but
that’s what comes to my mind. And that’s why they’re so good:
There are so many different doors you can open into their
welcoming abode.
A
Lovely Sight (Numero Group) by Pisces is a disc of
40-year-old recordings. However, this was never an album back
then. Central Illinois was not the ideal port of call for
homemade psychedelia. Pisces was the brainchild of Jim Krein
and Paul DiVenti, who enlisted a handful of other players.
A couple singles emerged to indifference. They never managed
to get and album out, but, drawn from acetates and tapes,
this is largely what it would have been. Time travel to a
place you never were before.
And speaking of psychedelia, the re-formed Os Mutantes’ Haih
(Anti-) is a mind-expanding, hip-shaking groove, cinematic
in scope and every bit as worthy of brain space as their earth-shaking
works from 40 years ago. If you hear bits of David Byrne,
Flaming Lips and Beck in this wild salad, it’s no accident,
because they are all indebted to Os Mutantes.
—David
Greenberger
Jazz
So,
I looked far and wide for a Christmas-themed jazz recording
that would come close to rivaling Bob Dylan’s fantastically
unlikely Christmas in the Heart (Sony), and
the best I could find was New Orleans trumpeter Kermit Ruffins’
Have a Crazy Cool Christmas (Basin Street).
Second-line versions of “Jingle Bells”? I’ll pass, but maybe
you know someone who’d appreciate a little yuletide gumbo.
Vijay Iyer’s latest, Historicity (ACT Music),
is probably a better choice for fans of progressive jazz.
The young, Rochester-raised pianist has spent the better part
of the decade convincing the jazz establishment that he’s
the guy to watch, and this acoustic-trio record stands as
his finest yet. Some have made the Bill Evans comparison,
but, despite a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Big Brother,” Iyer’s
music is grounded in the present tense. Cut right to his cover
of M.I.A.’s “Galang” for the evidence. To see how the young
gun fares in freer company, check out trumpeter Wadada Leo
Smith’s two-CD set Spiritual Dimensions (Cuniform),
which features Iyer on the first more-avant disc. The second
part is far more groove-oriented, but no less innovative,
as Smith conjures On the Corner-era Miles Davis with
four guitars, two basses, and a cello.
Speaking of Miles Davis, it seems like we can’t get through
a year without another huge Miles reissue. Last year was the
50th anniversary of his seminal Kind of Blue, which
offered a big box set for the completist. This year, things
got even more complete. The 52 CDs in the Complete Miles
Davis Columbia Album Collection cover everything Davis
recorded for Columbia between 1949 and 1985, as well as a
250-page book for more photos and context than you could ever
need. At $364.98, it sure ain’t cheap, but it’s the last Miles
Davis set you’ll ever need—until next Christmas.
Now, let’s leave all that nostalgic reissue business behind,
because jazz sure isn’t dead, and there are plenty of accomplished
improvisors making new exciting music. Garage a Trois features
(um) four of them. Saxophonist Skerik, vibraphonist Mike Dillon,
pianist Marco Benevento, and drummer Stanton Moore are generally
known for their other projects, but when they assemble it’s
worth taking note. Founding member Charlie Hunter stepped
down for Power Patriot (Royal Potato Family),
but the group’s grooves have only grown more heavy and irreverant,
in the vain of another Skerik/Dillon project the Dead Kenny
G’s. Benevento covers the album in fuzzy distortion while
Dillon plugs away on an instrument he calls the “electric
doorbell machine,” but the whole thing’s actually built on
some tasty compositions like “Fat Redneck Gangster.” It’s
possible that Hunter’s absence here is due to his involvement
with another collaborative group called Go Home, this one
a touch more gentle, but no less innovative. The group pair
Hunter’s eight-string guitar with the klezmer-influenced clarinet
of Ben Goldberg, known for his work with chamber jazz group
Tin Hat. Go Home (BAG Production) also features
drummer Scott Amendola and trumpeter Ron Miles, and may constitute
a more mature alternative to Garage a Trois (if that suits
your giftee).
If none of the above suits the jazz listener on your list,
it might be worth following the credo to “go local.” Jocamo
aren’t really a jazz group, but funk music often appeals more
to rhythm-savvy jazz fans than rockers. The band’s second
album The New Funk Order is a high-octane blast
of syncopation and sweaty horns. One track asks, “What Would
Barry White Do?” and seems to offer an answer in the same
breath. The disc’s a round-up of local heavyweights, including
saxophonist Keith Pray, who also lends his horn to May
(Planet Arts), local trumpeter Steve Lambert’s latest.
Brian Patneaude, Dave Solazzo, Mike DelPrete and Joe Barna
round out the lineup to offer a mixture of originals, as well
as standards like “Mack the Knife.”
—Josh
Potter
 Box
Sets
A
friend was recently in Target, and overheard a teenager asking
why the department store has “so many CDs.” Both tragic and
appropriate, this question—physical sales are in free-fall,
and information is getting cheaper by the minute. So what’s
left for the compact disc? A case could be made that the last
stand for the CD format will be the deluxe retrospective packages
known as box sets. It’s a win-win: The record labels get to
continue printing their worthless currency; fans get to buy
a collectible piece of a favored artist’s legacy.
This
year’s big-time box comes from the only act (besides Michael
Jackson) who could renew interest in the compact disc format.
Needless to say, for fans and fans-to-be, the Beatles stereo
remasters—together in a 16-disc package—and the limited-edition
set The Beatles in Mono are the best bets in
box sets this year. But you already knew about that. If the
Beatles fan on your list never really moved on, try enlightening
them to one of their immediate American descendants: Big Star’s
Keep An Eye on the Sky comprises the Memphis
band’s too-brief recording career (ignoring their 2005 “comeback”
disc In Space) over three discs, with an excellent,
previously unreleased 1973 live concert on the fourth. The
power-pop fan on your list will thank you, friend.
Elsewhere in pop, a pair of notable titles from RCA/Legacy
cover the freakishly hit-filled catalogs of two artists that
truly deserve the “legacy” tag. Do What You Want, Be
Who You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall & John Oates
is a comprehensive career retrospective for the blue-eyed
soul pioneers, delivered in typical chronological order over
four discs, beginning with the duo’s teenage recordings for
Philadelphia indie labels and ending with a new demo of a
song written in 1972. Live cuts dominate the unreleased material,
including five bad-ass tracks from a ’75 concert, and one
from from Hall’s popular Web series. But the studio tracks
speak for themselves: From the early album cuts (the deep
pocket of “Fall in Philadelphia,” the folk lilt of “Waterwheel”)
to the slick-as-shit ’80s hits (“Adult Education,” “Out of
Touch,” etc.) Hall and Oates rarely cut a bad record.
Another Legacy title, Dolly—because, really,
what else would they call it?—packs 99 songs into four discs,
covering 36 years of Dolly Parton’s great career. It starts
in 1957, with a Goldband single and a previously unreleased
demo from an 11-year-old Dolly, and ends with 1993’s ”Romeo,”
with all the classic hits in between. This set is short on
rarities, though all of the unheard cuts date from 1972 or
earlier. A fine primary lesson on one of country music’s great
songwriters and voices.
Quick ones: The four-CD Woody Guthrie collection My
Dusty Road unearths some rarely heard recordings
from the 1940s, including a half-dozen previously unreleased
cuts. Electronic-music godfathers Kraftwerk get the catalog
treatment on the cleverly titled The Catalogue—no
surprises here; just remastered versions of the band’s eight
studio titles from 1974 to 2003 (and nothing from their early,
Krautrock period). The Rod Stewart Sessions 1971-1998
is the coolest thing the singer has released in a mod’s
age: A collection of outtakes and alternate versions that
find Stewart at his creative best, wrapping up just before
his dreaded Songbook period. (Which has been so damn
successful it will probably get a box of its own.)
On the exhaustive front, look for the 7-LP vinyl edition of
Tom Waits’ two-year-old Orphans—Brawlers, Bawlers and
Bastards; The Live Archives, a
live retrospective from Tom Petty available in three different
configurations (including a 7-LP box); or Neil Young’s monstrous
The Archives Vol. 1, 1963-1972.
One very limited-edition but remarkably cool set comes from
English space-rock band Spiritualized. In celebration of their
landmark 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating
in Space, the band have issued a box set that presents
the 12 tracks individually, each on a 3-inch mini-CD, sealed
in a blister pack. Each of the 1,000 units comes with two
additional discs of unreleased demos and alternate versions,
new artwork, a numbered “prescription,” and, of course, a
download code so you don’t have to bang up the pretty packaging.
Info at lagwafis.com
Speaking of pretty packaging, AC/DC have issued Backtracks,
a collection of studio and live rarities from the Australian
rock stalwarts. Several versions of the set are available,
but nothing beats the online-only version: Three CDs and two
DVDs, one vinyl LP, a 164-page, hardcover coffee-table book,
and memorabilia from the band’s long career are all packaged
inside a working guitar amplifier. You can’t make this
stuff up, folks.
One more, for the niche: Radiolarians: The Evolutionary
Set is the culmination of a two-year series from instrumental
trio Medeski Martin & Wood. The box compiles Radiolarians
I, II and III, all recorded and released
over the past year or so, between tours. Also included are
a previously unreleased live disc, two vinyl LPs, a bunch
of bonus tracks and remixes, and a DVD of the Billy Martin-directed
film Fly In A Bottle. Order at mmw.net.
—John
Brodeur
 Classical
There’s
still hallowed ground in the topsy-turvy classical music world,
and one such shrine is conductor Herbert von Karajan’s Brahms:
The Complete Symphonies (Deutsche Grammophon) with
the Berlin Philharmonic. Some deem the orchestra the world’s
finest, and it traces its pedigree back to the days when Brahms
himself was a guest conductor.
Sir Simon Rattle has been its principal conductor for seven
years, but only recently took on those symphonies in a series
of concerts that were recorded and recently issued by EMI
as Brahms: The Symphonies. And I don’t think
there’s been this much fuss over a Brahms cycle since the
Karajan days. The verdict: Rattle’s dark-hued, energetic,
enthusiastic versions are as good or better than their acclaimed
predecessor’s.
In the Romantic symphonies realm, the Mahler parade continues,
its top (and quite different) interpreters being Bernard Haitink
with the Chicago Symphony (CSO Resound), which this year gave
us Mahler: Symphony No. 1 and Mahler:
Symphony No. 2; and Valery Gergiev, who weighed in
with thrilling versions of Symphony No. 2 and
Symphony No. 8 with the London Symphony (LSO
Live).
Bridging the classical and romantic, Beethoven’s piano concertos—especially
the last two of the five—have a recording history that favors
the latter. Richard Goode’s Nonesuch set, The Complete
Beethoven Piano Concertos, with Ivan Fischer conducting
the Budapest Festival Orchestra, have a classical restraint
that offers a fresh, equally valid point of view, with excellent
playing to back it up. Not for all tastes, fascinating to
mine.
Leonard Bernstein took an opposite approach to the many Haydn
works he recorded with the New York Philharmonic, and a new
12-disc set, Leonard Bernstein Conducts Haydn
(Sony Masterworks), reminds us that slower tempos and more
exaggerated interpretations were once the norm. It was a shock
to realize that I cut my teeth on several of these, and pleasant
to revisit them. Nineteen symphonies, four masses and The
Creation comprise this slim line box set.
Also in the reissues department: Chandos has reshuffled its
two-decades-old Prokofiev symphonic series that conductor
Neeme Järvi assiduously led, as Prokofiev: The
Complete Symphonies, which includes Ivan the Terrible,
the three Romeo & Juliet Suites, incidental music
to Eugene Onegin and the overwrought October Revolution
Cantata.
Opera recordings have dwindled as record companies tighten
their belts, but EMI came out with a Madama Butterfly
that gave us Angela Gheorghiu as Puccini’s heroine—and
once you hear her sing “Ah! m’ha scordata?” you’ll appreciate
the beauty of that choice. Jonas Kaufmann is Pinkerton; Antonio
Pappano conducts.
British soprano Kate Royal is making a deserved name for herself,
and her latest CD, Midsummer Night (EMI), offers
an infectious array of pastoral arias and songs familiar (Barber,
Stravinsky, Walton) and unexpected (Herrmann, Floyd, Alwyn),
with a generous sampling of Britten.
In the chamber music realm, we had the local pleasure of seeing
Wu Han, Philip Setzer and David Finckel perform Schubert’s
two piano trios at Union College early in the year; their
recording, Schubert Trios, on their own Artist
Led label, is an excellent memento—and definitive in execution.
Turn-of-the-18th-century composer Gaspar Sanz is best known
for his Suite Espanola for guitar. The components were
drawn from his lengthier Instrucción de música
sobre la guitarra espanola, 31 selections from
which are rousingly played by Orphénica Lyra (Glossa), a quartet
of guitars, theorbo and percussion that’s anything but academic.
They make the music come alive in the way of good jazz artists.
Which can also be said for Alarm Will Sound, an 21-member
ensemble of diverse instrumentalists whose CD a/rhythmia
(Nonesuch) skillfully weaves 14 polyrhythmic pieces into a
thrilling listen, with composers like Ligeti, Nancarrow and
Josquin des Prez featured alongside such relative youngsters
as Michael Gordon and Benedict Mason.
One of today’s young Turks is actually Turkish: composer-pianist
Fazil Say, whose 1001 Nights in the Harem
is a delightful violin concerto, artfully played by Patricia
Kopatchinskaja on a Naïve-label disc that also features his
ballet Patara and piano meditations on Gershwin and
Mozart (his reworking of the Rondo alla Turca is a
blast).
Pianist Angela Hewitt capped an 11-year project to record
all of Bach’s keyboard music by revisiting The Well-Tempered
Clavier, and her new recording (Hyperion) takes a
freewheeling but well-thought-out approach that in subtle
ways surpasses her old one.
Murray Perahia has also been spending a lot of recording time
with Bach, and finishes the Partitas with the recent release
of Bach Partitas 1, 5 & 6 (Sony), equally
lush and dignified.
Where did it all begin? With an improbable cylindrical device
that international businessman Julius Block got from Thomas
Edison in 1889, and which Block took through Europe and Russia
to wax some of the earliest surviving recordings. The
Dawn of Recording is a three-CD set impressively restored
by remastering wizard Ward Marston on his Marston Records
label, and, through the scratches of age, we hear the only
recordings of Arensky, Taneyev and others, and some of the
earliest by Josef Hofmann, Jascha Heifetz and more. You’ll
even hear Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy!
Finally, for your favorite piano fanatic, all of Vladimir
Horowitz’s RCA and Columbia recordings have been issued as
the 70-CD Original Jacket Collection, which
makes up in bounty and eye appeal what it lacks in program
notes. A well-deserved tribute.
—B.A.
Nilsson
Folk,
Blues, Bluegrass and Celtic
2009
has seen many worthy offerings of folk, blues, bluegrass,
and Celtic music. In addition to valuable reissues, historic
recordings from past masters, and new releases from contemporary
artists, some notable anthologies have also come along. I
have some fine CDs for you that would make wonderful gifts
for fans of these genres.
Last month, Bill Monroe alumnus Del McCoury came to the Egg
and put on a stellar show of old-school bluegrass. He brought
along copies of his daisy-fresh disc Family Circle
(McCoury Music), which, after his 2006 gospel album Promised
Land, marks a return to the high and lonesome sound. The
new CD shows that the McCoury band, which includes his two
sons, Ronny on mandolin and Robbie on banjo (hence the CD’s
title), just keeps getting better, and some are calling this
latest effort his best yet.
With his killer chops on guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and tenor
vocals, Ricky Skaggs is one the most gifted and versatile
musicians in bluegrass today. In remembrance of his late father
Hobart, an old-time performer, Skaggs multitracked himself
for a one-man recording, Solo: Songs My Dad Loved
(Skaggs Family). Although the track list of gospel and bluegrass
standards holds few surprises, you might not have known that
the younger Skaggs also plays piano, bass, Dobro and banjo,
and even handles percussion chores. Skaggs also plays at generally
slower tempos here than the manic prestos often heard in bluegrass.
A good bet for a blues fan is Charlie Musselwhite’s latest
album, Rough Dried: Live at the Triple Door
(Henrietta). Although not an overwhelming singer, Musselwhite
is perhaps the greatest living blues harp player, and his
live performances, such as this one at a leading Seattle venue,
are consistently strong. As well as blues shuffles and slow
numbers from his last 20 years of recorded output, Musselwhite
mixes in jazzy and Latin sounds.
Although “Sittin’ on Top of the World” has been recorded by
everyone from the Grateful Dead to Bill Monroe to Howlin’
Wolf, few blues aficionados know it was first recorded in
1929 by the Memphis blues ensemble the Mississippi Sheiks
(after Rudolph Valentino, if you weren’t a sheik you weren’t
chic). In A Tribute to the Mississippi Sheiks—Things
About Comin’ My Way (Black Hen Music), artists from
diverse genres salute the Sheiks. Among the contributors are
jazz chanteuse Madeline Peyroux and guitarist Bill Frisell,
the old-time string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, bluesman
John Hammond Jr., and singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn.
Another good compilation, this time of folk music, is The
Village (429), celebrating the era from the late 1950s
through the early 60s when the folk scene revolved on an axis
with poles in the coffeehouses of Harvard Square and Greenwich
Village. The hootenanny brings together artists such as the
Cowboy Junkies, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Hornsby, John
Oates, Lucinda Williams and Los Lobos to cover the music of
Bob Dylan, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Eric Andersen, Harry Belafonte,
Tim Buckley and others. The covers of acoustic originals by
electric bands would have been branded as heresy at the time,
but now it’s all good.
For hardcore folkies, there is Pete Seeger’s 2-disc set, Live
in ’65 (Appleseed), a previously unreleased live performance
by the now iconic nonagenarian at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Music
Hall when he was in his musical prime. Playing guitar and
banjo, Seeger delivers his signature protest anthems, traditional
ballads, and song settings of verse ranging from Russian poetry
to the Old Testament.
Celtic music lovers will welcome two recent reissues, the
first being the plainly titled 1997 Celtophile CD Jigs
and Reels: The Dance Music of Ireland (Compass). This
all-instrumental collection offers the typically fast, florid
Irish tunes performed on fiddle, wooden flute, button accordion,
and Uillean pipes by some of Celtdom’s best musicians, including
Kevin Burke, Eileen Ivers, Mick Moloney, Billy McComisky,
Jerry O’Sullivan, and Martin Hayes.
As for vocal music, Greentrax has reissued Scottish singer
Jean Redpath’s 1986 Rounder disc Will Ye No Come Back
Again? (The Songs of Lady Nairn). Here Redpath, accompanying
herself on guitar and also backed by Abbey Newton on cello
and David Gusakov on fiddle, performs the songs of Carolina
Oliphant, the Baroness Nairne (1766-1845), a prolific, melodic
composer in the Scottish tradition who, like her contemporary
Jane Austen, sought to remain anonymous as the creatrix of
her works. Redpath delivers Naire’s airs in her usual clear,
pure voice.
—Glenn
Weiser
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